First beer in the keg!

So we’ve made a beer. Our first one, a Brut IPA, was always going to be the one with all the mistake so it’s possible this one won’t see the light of day. The great thing is with brewing, of course, is that we won’t know until we try it – probably in about a week. If it’s up to our nit-picking standards then we’ll look forward to sharing it with you.

It’s a relatively simple recipe – a pale malt/wheat grain bill and oodles of Mosaic and Citra hops. It’s Brut because it has amylase added, which breaks down the carbohydrates and starches in the beer. The yeast can consume what it leaves behind so the beer finishes quite dry. For those into final gravity this one was 1.005 which is fairly dry but we reckon we can get it drier.

As for the process it all seemed to go fairly well. The negatives? We spent too long getting the counterflow chiller working the way we wanted which means that the beer might be more bitter than hoped. We’re also not *entirely* sure that the beer is free from hop particles. Do they count as one of your five-a-day?